An Interview
with Dr. George C. Wright: ‘Accounting for Accountability’

Dr. George C. Wright

By
Arelya J. Mitchell, Editor-in-Chief

The
Mid-South Tribune

And
the Black Information Highway

It wasn’t the first time Prairie
View A&M University President George C. Wright has been asked if
Black colleges and universities—otherwise known as Historical Black
Colleges and Universities and aptly abbreviated as HBCUs—are
relevant in today’s post-integration era where a nation has even
elected its first African American president who had just made his
arrival (1961) in the world during the tip of a tumultuous Civil
Rights Movement.

Dr. Wright, as so many other
African American prexies of HBCUs, display a combination of emotions
which can range from irritation to being outright verbal (However,
with the demeanor of a highly-disciplined professor) knowing that
the undertone of such a question implies that Black institutions of
higher learning just don’t stack up to their white counterparts. But
the one thing Wright is not and that is defensive about the
relevancy of HBCUs in the world where all race relations are
supposed to be null and void now that the country has its first
Black elected president, which somehow is supposed to be the
one-hundred percent proof that all is well in the western world.

“[Society] believes that it is a
contradiction to still have Black colleges,” begins Dr. Wright,
expounding on the fact that the whole purpose for the Civil Rights
Movement was to ‘integrate’ and therefore what was founded as a
Black institution of Higher Learning should now go by the wayside.
He wastes no time in getting to that other perception that Black
colleges are ‘inferior’ to their white counterparts which are
usually older and have historically had more access to funding.

Standards have to be defined as
far as Dr. Wright is concerned, and these standards cannot be
defined in a vacuum. As an example, he points out a tradition that
the Texas State Legislature has in which a day is given to colleges
to come in to make their case state funding. He recalls one year
that he had to make his case behind Dr. Robert Gates who was then
president of Texas A&M and presently serves as President Barack
Obama’s Secretary of Defense. Dr. Wright said that one year Gates
had a fundraising goal of about a billion dollars for Texas A&M;
whereas, he as president of Prairie View had a goal of $30 million.
Sure, Gates made his goal, Dr. Wright acknowledges, but he points
out that he, a president of a Black college, made his, too. And on
the scale of things he and Prairie View should not be judged with
the same yardstick as Gates and Texas A&M.

“How can you compare us?” he asked
rhetorically. Well, almost rhetorically, because in essence he says
this is exactly what is being done when it comes to what Black
institutions are supposed to achieve or not achieve; what Blacks
institutions are supposed to be doing and not be doing in terms of
fundraising, and too many times this comparison under the guise of a
color-blind accountability are used to justify legislatures and
others not providing funds or rather not providing funds with the
same enthusiasm as they would a non-HBCU.

“How can you compare us?” he asks
again and this time with that proverbial logic of comparing apples
to oranges. “We had a goal of $30 million that year and we made
about $32 million. We had tapped into people who had not accumulated
the kind of wealth in America that Texas A&M had been doing—but we
were doing things that would benefit our university for years to
come. And given where Prairie View started [with a Jim Crow
disadvantage], this was an accomplishment our people can be very
proud of. You can’t use for us the same model you use for Texas A&M
no more than you can use the same model for Texas A&M that you use
for the University of California,” and he brings up the latter in
saying that nobody ever looks at a model of comparing white
institutions of higher learning to other white institutions of
higher learning; yet, when it comes to Black institutions of higher
learning, apples and oranges are compared arbitrarily to measure
progress under that elusive subjective term called
‘accountability’. Dr. Wright hammers on the fact that this is not
authentic accountability, and it has no place in being used to
measure the legitimacy for the existence of HBCUs.

“In other words, it puts us – Black
college presidents—in a situation where we look like we are always
complaining and apologizing,” he says, citing for example that
accountability measures don’t add up when it comes to Ph.D programs
and other post-graduate programs that a Texas A&M had in place in
the 1940’s and 1950’s, when Prairie View is now just beginning to
implement such programs 60 or 70 years later.

“But, of course, back then they [the
powers that be] were not measuring like they are ‘measuring’ now,”
he asserts sarcastically.

Furthermore, Dr. Wright says: “It’s very
acceptable in this country to have institutions that are solely
one-sex or one religion or a military university and no one
questions that, but when it comes to having a Black institution then
it becomes a controversy.”

Dr. Wright says that Prairie View has
long prepared students who wanted an education and wanted to go on
to get a higher degree at an institution that offers post graduate
degrees or other programs that Prairie View does not offer. But he
reasserts that Prairie View and other Black colleges set a
foundation that builds up a student’s self-confidence which
translates into a self-esteem while providing a good education.

“I can give examples of students who
finish Prairie View and other HBCUs. I can show you people who will
do great things,” he says then tells of a student named Johnny
Jones. “Johnny came from Arkansas and he went on to go the LBJ
School of Public Affairs…he is not a stereotyped student. He wears a
bow tie and he has so much confidence that he’s not bothered by what
anyone thinks of him… He’s either going to be governor of Texas one
day or he’ll be governor of Arkansas,” Dr. Wright predicted like a
proud ‘papa’ who has mentored many African American students to go
on to achieve.

He adds that HBCUs have allowed many
African American students to be the first of their generation to go
to college and get a degree. “Students who now come to Prairie View
are following in the footsteps of someone else in their family who
went here. This helps the community by encouraging more to come.” He
says that when that first of a generation graduates it serves as an
example of bettering the economics of that family and a way out of
welfare, if that’s the case. “It’s easy to blame the victim,” he
says, emphasizing that getting a college degree cuts down on many
African American students being economic ‘victims’ in what has not
always been an even playing field.

“Also, anytime I start off a Black
History Month presentation, I ask the question ‘Is Black History
Month necessary?’ And I try to do it in a humorous way. Whenever I
do, someone will ask ‘why don’t we do White History Month? But it
has been so ingrained in us to question our history month not
realizing that every month we have White History Month. It’s called
American History, and then I go into why Black History Month is so
important and why Black institutions are still important.”

***

Link to Prairie View on the
HBCU Lane or the Education
Lane on the Black Information Highway or The Mid-South Tribune
ONLINE.